Monday, 15 June 2015

Mayoring Sunday

Written for the Civic Banquet and Thank You Party of the Mayor of Glastonbury, Denise Michell - Glastonbury's first Green and first Druid Mayor; June 2015image copyright (c) Bill Nichollsappears here cropped with colours enhancedlicensed for reuse under this Creative Commons licence

I suspect it may come as a surprise to many outwith Glastonbury

That our famous town’s Mayor has not already been

a Druid Green

Who has also been known as the Fairy Queen.

With Glastonbury's reputation for alternativity

(as keen to mark Beltane as the Nativity)

What took us so long?

Our Town Hall has stood since 1818.

That's as long as London’s Old Vic,
which in the intervening 190-odd years, has seen

Thirteen productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream...

But perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves

For, alongside their many magical features

Fairies are notoriously elusive creatures.

Until today, some would have thought it no more possible

To put chains on a Fairy

Than put an anchor on a cloud

Tie the shoes of a ghost

Harness a tide

Send a sunbeam down a wire,

Or fashion a plough out of stars.And yet here we are.Our Mayor is solid and so are her chains.Which might serve to remind us:Green can be fairy.Green can be airy.But green can be for grass,For turf, and earth.Well, now the long green wait is over:
We'll see now what the wait was worth.